This weekend, New Orleans will become the center of the action-sports world.
The MoonPay X Games Championship takes over the Caesars Superdome from July 24–26, bringing many of the world’s best skateboarders, BMX riders and action-sports athletes to the Gulf Coast. It will also serve as the first championship event of the new X Games League summer season.
But the Gulf Coast’s skateboarding culture does not begin at the Superdome.
It can be found beneath interstate bridges in Pensacola and Biloxi, inside an old-school skate shop, beside recreation fields in Mobile and Slidell, and underneath the interstate in New Orleans.
This road trip begins with three distinctly different Pensacola-area parks before following Interstate 10 west toward Mobile, the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Slidell and New Orleans. Rather than stopping at every collection of ramps along the highway, the itinerary concentrates on the region’s most established, highly regarded or culturally significant skateparks.
Pack the boards, bring more water than you think you need and start driving west.
Stop 1: Shoreline Park Skatepark
Location: Shoreline Park North, 800 Shoreline Drive Gulf Breeze, FL,
Best for: A relaxed opening session and less-experienced skaters
Before reaching Pensacola proper, begin the trip across the bay in Gulf Breeze.
The skatepark at Shoreline Park is not the biggest or most advanced facility on this trip. It is a smaller wooden park built around basic banks, ledges, curbs and a fun box. That makes it better suited for warming up, practicing fundamentals or introducing someone to park skating than spending an entire day chasing complicated lines.
Its setting gives it an advantage. Shoreline Park North is part of a much larger recreation complex with athletic fields, tennis and pickleball courts, basketball courts, a paved exercise trail and an 18-hole disc-golf course. The skatepark is restricted to skateboards and inline skates, and helmets are required.
Shoreline is the appetizer rather than the main course. Take a few runs, loosen up and then cross Pensacola Bay for two of Northwest Florida’s essential skateboarding stops.
Stop 2: Waterboyz Surf & Indoor Skatepark
Address: 380 N. Ninth Ave., Pensacola, Florida
Best for: Rainy days, summer heat and the skate-shop experience
Waterboyz represents the older, independent side of Pensacola skateboarding.
Located inside the Waterboyz Surf and Skate headquarters, the indoor, air-conditioned park gives local skaters somewhere to ride when thunderstorms, humidity or triple-digit heat indexes make an outdoor session miserable. The business describes its current indoor skating area as approximately 3,000 square feet and also offers lessons and summer skate camps.
The park is more compact than Blake Doyle, but that is part of the appeal. Waterboyz feels less like a municipal recreation project and more like the kind of skate-shop park where local scenes have traditionally grown. Wooden ramps, transition elements and street-inspired obstacles are packed into an enclosed space with the shop only steps away.
It is also the logical weather backup for the entire Pensacola portion of the journey. When a Gulf Coast storm arrives, this is the stop that can save the day. Because it is a privately operated indoor facility, confirm public-session hours, admission prices and waiver requirements before arriving.
Stop 3: Blake Doyle Skatepark
Address: 501 N. Hayne St., Pensacola, FL
Best for: The complete park experience
Road-trip ranking: No. 1 park east of New Orleans
If this journey includes only one Pensacola stop, make it Blake Doyle.
Opened in 2023 beneath Interstate 110, the park instantly changed what was possible for skateboarders in Northwest Florida. It offers approximately 25,000 square feet of skateable surface, plus another 5,700 square feet of sidewalks and gathering space. The layout includes a beginner section, a multilevel plaza and two concrete bowls. It is open from dawn until midnight.
The interstate provides some shelter and gives the park the gritty, urban atmosphere that suits skateboarding. Instead of hiding the park on the edge of town, Pensacola placed it near downtown, beneath a structure that had previously divided neighborhoods and created dead space.
The campaign for a major public skatepark was led by Upward Intuition founder Jon Shell. The finished park was named in memory of Shell’s friend Blake Doyle, whose death helped inspire the effort to create a safer and more positive place for young people. The project took years of fundraising, advocacy and public support before finally opening.
Blake Doyle works because it does not force every rider onto the same terrain. Beginners can find manageable features while experienced skaters can connect the plaza, transition areas and bowls into longer, faster lines. This is not merely the best park in Pensacola. It is one of the strongest public skatepark destinations anywhere along the Gulf Coast.
Stop 4: Mobile Skate Plaza
Location: 2301 Airport Blvd, Mobile, AL 36606
Best for: Street skating, ledges and technical lines
After leaving Pensacola, follow Interstate 10 west into Mobile.
Mobile Skate Plaza—often simply called the Mobile Skatepark—is the city’s primary dedicated skating destination. The concrete street-oriented layout includes banks, rails, ledges, a mini ramp, an A-frame rail and a hubba-style ledge. One skatepark directory currently lists it with an average rating of 4.6 out of 5.
The Mobile stop offers a noticeable change from Blake Doyle. Instead of large modern bowls and a sprawling contemporary design, the plaza leans toward the fundamentals of street skating. It is the kind of park where a rider can spend an hour working the same rail, ledge or bank from several directions.
Mobile also has a deeper street-skating history than a quick interstate stop might suggest. Local skate company BellyRash has documented notable public spots around the city, showing how Mobile’s scene developed through a mixture of purpose-built parks and improvised urban terrain.
The plaza may not have Blake Doyle’s scale, but its reputation, technical possibilities and active local scene earn it a place on this route.
Stop 5: I.G. Levy Skatepark
Location: I.G. Levy Memorial Park South, 3928 Nathan Hale Ave, Pascagoula, MS 39581
Best For: Families, Beginners
Not every memorable skatepark has to be massive.
Tucked inside I.G. Levy Memorial Park in Pascagoula is one of South Mississippi’s longtime public skateparks. Open since 2008, the approximately 4,500-square-foot concrete skate plaza features stairs, banks, ledges and handrails, making it an approachable place for skaters learning street fundamentals while still offering enough features to put together creative lines. The park is free, open daily, and sits within one of Pascagoula’s largest recreation complexes.
What I.G. Levy lacks in size, it makes up for in memories.
For generations of Jackson County skaters, this was where friendships were made, tricks were landed for the first time, and countless summer afternoons disappeared. Located just a few miles from the Mississippi Sound, it’s the kind of neighborhood skatepark that quietly keeps a local scene alive while bigger facilities grab the headlines. If you’re making the drive from Pensacola to New Orleans, it’s worth the quick detour, not because it’s the Gulf Coast’s biggest park, but because every skateboarding community has a place like this.
Stop 6: Biloxi DIY Skatepark
Location: 205 Hopkins Blvd., Biloxi, Mississippi
Best for: DIY culture and understanding the Mississippi Coast scene. The most professionally designed course on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
The Mississippi Gulf Coast does not yet possess a giant polished concrete park comparable to Blake Doyle. Its most important stop is valuable for a different reason. Biloxi DIY Skatepark grew from the work of local skaters and the Gulf Coast Skateparks Association, which transformed an underused paved area beneath Interstate 110 into a public skating space. The obstacles have included movable ramps, rails and ledges that allow riders to rearrange portions of the layout and create different lines.
In early 2026, lighting was installed at the park, expanding the hours when local riders could use the space. Later that spring, volunteers returned for a large cleanup and improvement day, repairing obstacles, repainting features and continuing the gradual transformation of the property. Biloxi leaders also formally recognized it as a city park.
The current DIY setup is only part of the larger vision.
The Gulf Coast Skateparks Association has promoted plans for a permanent, multiphase Biloxi skatepark on the 62,000-square-foot site. The proposed project would replace or significantly expand the temporary arrangement with a major regional facility, although fundraising, design and construction remain long-term efforts.
Biloxi DIY belongs on this trip not because it has the Gulf Coast’s smoothest concrete or deepest bowl. It belongs because it shows how skateparks are often created in places that have historically overlooked skateboarding: one obstacle, volunteer workday and city meeting at a time.
Stop 7: John Slidell Skate Park
Location: John Slidell Park; 82 Grafton Dr, Slidell, LA
Best for: A full session before entering New Orleans
After crossing the Mississippi-Louisiana state line, the Skatepark of Slidell is the strongest Northshore stop on the route. The concrete park combines street obstacles with transition terrain, including banks, quarter pipes, rails, a fun box and a bowl with stone coping. It is substantial enough to offer variety without becoming overwhelming to less-experienced riders.
The City of Slidell lists the park as open daily from 7 a.m. until 9 p.m., with lighting remaining on briefly after the skating area closes. That makes it particularly useful during a summer road trip when riders may prefer to avoid the hottest part of the afternoon. Slidell also has an active competitive connection to the regional scene. The park has hosted best-trick events connected to “Skatin’ the Coast,” a series that brings riders from across Louisiana and Mississippi together.
This is more than a rest-area diversion. Slidell is one of the most complete public parks between Pensacola and New Orleans and deserves a full session.
Stop 8: Sidney D. Torres Memorial Skatepark
Address: 8271 Patricia Street, Chalmette, Louisiana
Best for: Bowl riders and transition skating
Before reaching central New Orleans, take a short detour into St. Bernard Parish. Opened in 2018, the poured-in-place concrete park at Sidney D. Torres Memorial Park measures approximately 150 feet by 50 feet. Its signature feature is an eight-foot-deep bowl accompanied by multiple ledges and significant elevation changes.
The park is not enormous, but it makes good use of its footprint. The cloverleaf-style bowl and changing elevations create a different challenge from the flatter street plazas found earlier on the route. Louisiana skatepark guides commonly estimate the total skating space at around 10,000 square feet and describe it as scooter- and BMX-friendly as well as skateable.
For riders who prefer carving, speed and transition over repeated rail attempts, Chalmette may be one of the most enjoyable stops of the trip. It also serves as a reminder that the New Orleans skate scene extends well beyond the city’s official boundaries.
Final Stop: Parisite Skatepark
Address: 1606 Pleasure St., New Orleans, Louisiana
Best for: History, atmosphere and New Orleans skate culture. Most essential stop on the way to the X-Games
Every skatepark trip to New Orleans should end at Parisite.
The park began around 2010 when local skateboarders started building their own obstacles beneath Interstate 610 near Paris Avenue. Its name came from the location—“Paris site”—but it also captured the rebellious personality of a project constructed without waiting for the city to deliver one.
At the time, New Orleans had more than 350,000 residents and no official public skatepark. Parisite eventually developed from a guerrilla DIY spot into the city’s first official public skatepark.
A major expansion built by Spohn Ranch opened in 2014, adding roughly 6,000 square feet of professionally constructed terrain. Some elements came from the Red Bull Mississippi Grind project, in which skateable features traveled down the Mississippi River by barge. The finished park mixed those pieces with new concrete, ledges, transition and street terrain beneath the interstate.
Parisite is not the largest park on this road trip. Blake Doyle is considerably bigger, and Sidney Torres offers a deeper conventional bowl. But no other stop carries Parisite’s combination of DIY history, local identity and symbolic importance.
This park exists because New Orleans skateboarders stopped waiting for permission to have a place of their own.
That makes it the proper ending.
From there, the Caesars Superdome is only a few miles away, where skateboarding’s most famous names will compete beneath bright lights and television cameras. But Parisite tells the other half of the story: the sport has always depended on local riders building scenes far away from major contests.
Suggested Two-Day Route
Day One: Pensacola to Biloxi
Begin early at Shoreline Park, cross the bay for Waterboyz and spend the largest portion of the morning at Blake Doyle. Continue west for an afternoon session at Mobile Skate Plaza, then finish beneath the lights at Biloxi DIY.
Day Two: Biloxi to New Orleans
Continue west with a morning session at Slidell, work the bowl at Sidney Torres in Chalmette and finish at Parisite before heading downtown for the X Games.
The route covers three states, several generations of skatepark design and nearly every version of Gulf Coast skateboarding, from compact wooden ramps and indoor shop culture to modern concrete bowls and DIY obstacles built beneath interstate bridges.
The X Games may be bringing the world’s best riders to New Orleans for one weekend.
The road to the Superdome, however, has been under construction for decades
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